every Saturday since
October 2007. It's now moving to Mondays...and tonight celebrates

that transition by holding the extravaganza in the main
showroom upstairs!

There will be two shows: one at 6:30 pm and the other
at 9:00 pm.

Each is likely to cram a breathtaking 30+ comics into
a 2½ slot.

No cover charge, but there's a two-item minimum; with
tax & tip, figure on paying $13 or up.

That's a reasonable price for enjoying this lottery-style
open mic for comics trying out material

on the elegant Comix stage. Because of the frenetic pace—4½ minutes
per performer—John
Morrison has described it as "comedy on crack." If you're seeking
consistent laughs, look elsewhere. But if you're patient and adventurous,
it's a potentially wild ride. To reserve tickets, please email kcrews@comixny.com
with your name, the number in your party, and whether you'll be attending
at 6:30 or 9:00 pm.

And if you're a performer, it's a golden opportunity to
nab a Comix credit.

Stickerbook (above) is a terrific
all-gal experimental cover band whose members include some of the funniest
women in NYC: Jen Hammaker (theremin, keys, vocals),
Becky Poole (saw, accordion, guitar), Eliza Skinner (drums, accordion, vocals), Sue Galloway (guitar, keys, vocals), and Becky Yamamoto (keys, tambourine, vocals). Please
sample their stuff via their MySpace page, and then
come see them perform live tonight for a mere five bucks.

And just in case that's not enough, Stickerbook will be
interviewing two esteemed comedy guests: Casey Wilson,
the newest cast member of Saturday Night
Live; and Kelly Coffield Park, one of the original
cast members of In Living Color!

And in case that's
not enough (and franky, it really is), there's a second half to this double-bill:
Leslie Miesel performing a complete one-woman show!

Start your week out right with this female-powered Monday
evening party.

Lizz Winstead is co-creator and former
head writer of the original The Daily
Show; former Executive VP of Air America Radio; and a performer
on such shows as Comedy Central Presents
and HBO's Women of the Night.
(She's also a character; e.g., for a memorable anti-apology after
canceling her appearance on the live NYC show Drink at Work, please click here.)

Tonight's guest is Susie Essman,
who plays wife Susie Greene on HBO's wonderful Curb
Your Enthusiasm...and who is also a highly respected and in-demand
stand-up comic.

To get a feel for STM,
view a fun interview with cartoonist David Rees by clicking here.

Whether she's playing Nomi Malone (see my review of her
Showgirls
parody), author JK Rowling (as the clear highlight of a Harry Potter
parody, in which Rowling reveals all the novels are based on actual events
in her life), Sandy Michaelson
as a Solid Gold Dance understudy, or zillions of characters while delivering
world-class improvisation every Saturday night as part of stellar troupe
Reuben Williams, watching the wonderful Ms. Parham
is always a treat.

Tonight Lennon burns up the stage with an array of characters
ranging from an unsettling radio DJ to a sweet little girl to Freddy Kruger...and
will likely have you helpless with laughter.

The extravaganza is directed by the brilliant Jason Mantzoukas, who should take a bow for helping
Lennon really show off what she can do in this solo outing.

Stop by and fall in love with one of the finest comedic
actresses in New York.

Tonight's guests include Erin Hall,
a stellar musician and delightfully subtle comedic singer/songwriter.
For looped series of videos of her live act Erin and her Cello, please
click here; and to hear tracks of Erin's debut
CD, please click here.

Kambri Crews (luminous performer,
stellar publicist & producer, and one of the most sharp, charming,
and heartfelt comedic storytellers working in NYC; for Kambri's correspondence
with her deaf dad, who's in a Texas prison for trying to stab
his wife to death, please visit Web site LoveDaddy.org;
for a video of Kambri reading her jailed dad's wedding toast, please click
here),

Tonight debuts Irish
You Luck, a St. Patrick's Day homage featuring booze and little
green men.

From the official description: "The Apple Sisters
are Candy, Cora, and Seedy. Their mother, Ms. Reddy Apple, was a vaudeville
star and she passed down the legacy to her three girls! The trio present
their live show, broadcast on WXYZ AM Radio, straight to the troops in
Germany, and present the show on stage at the Peoples Improv Theater in
their first and favorite home, the Big Apple! Be a chum and always use
Doramad Toothpaste, now with Thorium!"

Jen & Angie imagines
what would happen if Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie

were stranded together on a desert island. It's a cute
idea that's gotten the show some press.

Considering how fascinating and complex the real-life
celebrities are,

I have problems with the shallowness of the script, which
all too often makes

easy and obvious choices. But there's definite pleasure
to be had in the silliness

of Christina Casa's portrayal of Jolie as a husky-voiced
android who speaks in

short declarative sentences, never uses contractions,
and always calls her rival by her full name

(e.g., "Have some condor, Jennifer Aniston. It is
good for you, Jennifer Aniston.").

The show co-stars Sara Chase as Aniston, and is directed
by Susanah Becket.

The other half of this double-bill is BLITZKRIEG!:
A Sketch Show From the Future.

Two of the sketches—involving
a pot-head being recruited to save the future, and a father who demonstrates
remarkably poor parental skills—are
hilarious instant classics. The other sketches need work, making this
a mixed bag. But if you're patient, it's worth sitting through the lesser
material to get to the gold. As the official description accurately states,

"When you are called from the future to defend the
human race against destruction, will you be ready?

Some of these folks are comedy geniuses; and they're on
stage practicing their craft

in front of rapt audiences every Friday night at 9:30
at UCBT.

Last week the UCB theatre was crammed with those who love
improv and laughter when The Stepfathers went head-to-head with one of
the other finest troupes in comedy,
Reuben Williams.

Honestly, I thought it was a close match, with both teams
demonstrating a great deal of inventiveness, quick wit, and artful grace.
(Not to mention, Charlie Sanders threw in a memorable
somersault...) But the audience preference was clear: It voted 148 to
67 in favor of the champs, nabbing The Stepfathers its fourth win for
the season.

Going up against the juggernaut men call The Stepfathers
this evening is Raynard, consisting
of John Adam, Robert Cuthill,
Spike Friedman, Aaron Glaser, Hallie
Haglund, Zhubin
Parang, Amber Petty, and Will Storie.
This troupe performs virtually every Tuesday at UCBT's Harold
Night.

There's no telling what will happen...which is one of
the great pleasures of this extravaganza.

Kumail Nanjiani is
a rising stand-up comedy star. (To get a feel for his usual material,
please check out Nanjiani's routines about the dark side of video games,
odd memories, and the many ways cell
phones are eliminated in horror films by clicking here.)
But in this autobiographical one-man show, Nanjiani demonstrates
that he's also a thoughtful, witty
writer who can effectively mix laughter with poignancy.

Nanjiani begins by describing his growing
up in Pakistan, where religion dictates virtually every thought and action:

You know how when you do arts
and crafts and you use glitter, and when you're done you look around and
you've got glitter everywhere? It's on your hands. It's on the carpet.
It's in your hair. It's in your ears. That's how Islam is. It's all over
everything.

In the afterlife you're taken to the edge
of a cliff. Across the way is Heaven. But it's a ways off, not like "Hey,
I'm gonna pop over to Heaven to borrow some sugar. Be back in 10."
And there's a rope you have to balance yourself on to get to the other
side. But this isn't just any rope...it's thinner than the thinnest human
hair and sharper than the sharpest knife in the world. And you have to
balance yourself and cross this rope—barefoot—to get to
Heaven. And below you...is Hell.

That's a lot to deal with for an 8-year-old
boy.

When he got a bit older, Nanjiani got
hold of videotapes from America, and...

I watched mostly horror films—even
though I was never scared of them. I
imagined myself standing over Hell five times every day. When you hear
that much about molten lead in your ears and mountains flying at you,
Saw is like a Disney movie.

In the first half of his show, Nanjiani
makes a compelling—and,
at times, hair-raising—case
against religious zealotry, an emphasis on the afterlife over the here-and-now,
and blindly following the crowd.

In the second half, he describes how his
experiences at a college in Iowa slowly changed him. Eventually Nanjiani
abandoned Islam; religion in general; and even belief in God.

This is effectively where his show ends.
And frankly, I wish there was a third act.

Because while Nanjiani's rebellion against
the rules he grew up with is wholly understandable, he doesn't make clear
what he's found to replace them (aside from some references to favoring
love for people over love for God...as if it must be an either-or decision).

Also not clarified is why getting disillusioned
with one's childhood religion—or,
for that matter, any organized religion—translates
to becoming an atheist. If you're appalled by how a group has interpreted
or twisted a concept, you can reject the group but still embrace the concept.

For these reasons, I feel the tale is incomplete;
but hey, so is life at Nanjiani's age of 29.

And in fairness, I had the same problems
with a one-man show Matt
Besser performed at UCBT a couple of years ago titled Woo
Pig Sooie!
Besser was brought up Judeo-Christian; but at core he told the same story,
and with the same conclusion. A young writer can do a lot worse than be
compared to comedy giant Besser.

Kumail Nanjiani's show is at times gripping,
insightful, shocking, and hilarious...and crammed with fascinating observations
and anecdotes. Unpronounceable
is well worth catching, and is highly recommended.

The official description: "Centralia is known as
one of the boldest, most inventive, ground-breaking improvisation groups
to ever hit a New York stage. See the performers the Daily
News called 'the purest form of theatre,' the Chicago
Sun said is 'advancing the art of improvisation,' and the Village Voice said watching is 'like
having a front row seat at a stranger's dream.'"

To perform improvisation at UCBT, you must spend years
taking classes and carefully perfecting your craft...or you can come to
this monthly free show, which allows audience members to jump on stage
and participate! Hosted by popular long-form improv troupe fwand, consisting of Chelsea Clarke, Dominic Dierkes,
Jonathan Gabrus, Sean Hart,

Drop Six is a superb NYC-based sketch
troupe that makes great use of physical comedy.

The group—consisting
of Marcus Bonnée, Tim Girrbach, Alicia Levy, Rodney Umble, and director
Larry Rosen—was
awarded Best of the Fest by Second
City at the 2006 Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival. And their Drop
Six: Mr. Lucky show killed at last year's FringeNYC, placing in
my top 15 of the festival (out of 188 wildly diverse & competitive
productions).

If you like sketch comedy, or simply enjoy laughing, I
recommend Drop Six.

The Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre's signature show,
which features a monologist telling stories based on audience suggestions
and a group of top improvisers (sometimes including stars such as SNL's Amy Poehler and Horatio Sanz)
creating scenes based on the stories. There are two shows every Sunday
which share the same format, but are otherwise entirely different because
everything is improvised. The 7:30 pm show is $8; advance tickets might
be sold out by the time you read this, but a limited number of seats are
available at the door for

those who arrive early enough to nab 'em...and even more
tickets are available for those willing to watch the show standing. The
9:30 show is free, with tickets distributed outside the theatre

at
8:15 pm; but again, you may need to come early and wait on line to ensure
getting into